Cheese burger with pale ale cheese slices and sweet potato fries

Whilst looking for a new twist on the classic cheese burger I came across a recipe from Heston Blumenthal where he made cheese slices using Dutchy Originals IPA, it intrigued me as I wasn’t sure how to get from a solid lump of cheddar into floppy slices or if it would just be a waste of nice cheese and beer.

After reading the recipe it seemed simple enough but I decided to skip the step where Heston put the dry cheese mixture in the fridge for two hours as I wasn’t sure what that would achieve. I also decided to replace the beer with some Adnams canned Ghost Ship as that’s what I’d just opened to drink. I also decided to use my own burgers as the recipe used supermarket burgers.

The slices didn’t look hugely appetising at first but by the time they had set they looked great, they tasted even better too. Next time I’m going to add some chopped chilli for a little extra kick.

I used white sweet potatoes for the fries as I spotted them in the supermarket and hadn’t tried them before, but normal sweet potatoes would work exactly the same.

Serves two with a few left over cheese slices, depending on how thick you make them.

Ingredients For the cheese slices

110g extra mature cheddar cheese, grated

70ml of beer

1/4 teaspoon of dried yeast

1/4 teaspoon of English mustard

1/2 teaspoon of Marmite

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

13g corn flour

For the burger

300g good quality steak mince

1/2 teaspoon rosemary

1/2 teaspoon oregano

salt

pepper

1 teaspoon tomato purée

For the sauce

1 tablespoon tomato ketchup

1 tablespoon mayo

1 teaspoon French’s yellow mustard

1/2 teaspoon Tabasco

For the sweet potato fries

2 sweet potatoes

2 tablespoons corn flour

1 teaspoon rosemary

salt

pepper

Trimmings

Tomato, sliced

2 buns, toasted

little gem lettuce

Gherkins, sliced

Onion, sliced, soaked in boiling water for 10 minutes

2 slices of smoked bacon

Method

To make the cheese slices, mix the cheese, Worcestershire sauce, marmite, corn flour, yeast and mustard in a bowl, heat the beer in a pan, add the cheese mix and whisk until smooth.

line a baking tray with grease proof paper, spread the cheese mix over the paper, leave to cool, when cooled, cut into slices and place in fridge until needed.

To make the sauce mix the ingredients in a bowl, set aside

For the fries, cut the sweet potato into chips, soak in cold water for 30mins, drain then pat dry with kitchen paper, coat in the corn flour And fry a 180 degrees c until crispy. Drain and sprinkle with salt, pepper and rosemary.

For the burger place the ingredients in a bowl, then mix together using your hands, season well and shape into two burgers, you can then chill the burgers until needed,

cook your burgers on a smoking griddle pan, until cooked to your liking, for the last 60 seconds add a cheese slice to each burger and allow to melt.

griddle your gherkins and bacon,

spread your bun with the sauce, top with tomato, lettuce, onion then the burger and bacon.